In prior art literature several types of puffer breakers are known.
FR2733086A1 is an example of a puffer breaker having a first contact member and a second contact member that form a separable interruption current path being separated to a separable nominal current path. A drive is connected to a puffer cylinder such that the latter is movable relative to a fixed piston in order to feed an amount of stored gas in the puffer volume within the puffer cylinder to a nozzle.
A representative of a second type of puffer breakers is known from FR2352386A1. The general idea of this document is to promote a puffer breaker for comparatively short strokes. Such a short stroke will lead to a way lower mass flow of gas since the diameter of the piston is traditionally determined by the given nominal contact system. For enabling short strokes and overcoming the problem of low mass flow, FR2352386A1 promotes arranging a plurality of compression volumes. Hence said puffer breaker comprises a puffer cylinder having several pistons attached to a common piston stem including a hollow pin forming the first contact member such that several puffer volumes are formed. When the puffer volumes are squeezed the gas trapped therein is allowed to escape via ports into the interior of the tubular piston stem up to the pin tip where they come in contact with the electric arc.
There are switching situations where not only the travelling speed of a movable first contact member relative to a second contact member are decisive but also the time to accelerate the first contact member to the maximum travelling speed becomes important. Both representatives of the first and second type have in common that they have a limited pertinence for mastering that task.